Restoration 01 - Getting It Right (6 page)

“What?” James glanced around the bedroom, as though the answer was hiding among the clutter. Schtump was watching them from a pile of clothes on the floor. “Suspected what?”

“That you were hung up on Nathan.”

“I am not.”

“Really? So we were fucking with our clothes on and you called me Nate for no reason whatsoever? Liar.”

“I’ve got you.”

Bourbon. Couch. Nate.

Had something happened last night during his drunken blackout? Something Nathan was hiding from him? What on earth would Nathan lie about? Fuck, he’d gone too far with one guy earlier that night. He’d never forgive himself if he’d pushed Nathan into something his friend didn’t want.

“It’s not like you hide it all that well, honey,” Elliott said. “The way you look at him when your guard isn’t up. Like he’s a lollipop you want to lick from top to bottom.”

The truth of the words speared James in the heart. He’d wanted Nathan for years, but he couldn’t have him, so why bother nursing a crush on a straight guy? Wasn’t that what all of the casual sex was about? Getting Nathan out of his head?

“It doesn’t matter,” James said. “Nathan’s straight.”

“A longtime crush on a straight guy. No wonder you and me never stood a chance.”

Elliott spoke with a sad humility that only fueled James’s guilt.

“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think of another thing to say. “Don’t tell anyone, especially Nate. I don’t want things with us to get weird.”

He tastes like whiskey and chips.

Holy shit. How do I know that? What did I
do
?

“Jay?” Elliott squeezed his hand. “You okay? Please don’t barf on my bed.”

“I’m so sorry, Ell.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re kinda scaring me right now.”

The complete role reversal made James bark out a laugh. From him worried about

Elliott’s mental well-being to Elliott fearing for the safety of his linens in under a minute. When had he stopped being able to make healthy decisions in his personal life? “I shouldn’t have let things go so far. You’re grieving.”

“I knew what I was doing.” The old Elliott fire sparked to life in his light brown eyes.

“You weren’t taking advantage of me.”

“Maybe not, but I was being selfish, and you deserve better than that.”

“I think I know what the fuck I deserve better than you, and don’t you dare try to headshrink what’s happening right now. I need a friend, not a therapist.”

James blinked, startled by the sudden vehemence in Elliot’s tone and words. “I’m not trying to counsel you. I am being your friend.”

“You want to be a friend? Stop thinking about Nate, get naked and fuck me until we both see stars. Otherwise? Leave me the hell alone.”

Neither option appealed. James wanted to stay and help Elliott through this, but that wasn’t behind curtain number three. So he chose the less destructive of the two choices, and he left.

Nate didn’t get the voice mail from James until well after midnight, when he finally dragged his sorry, exhausted ass home for a few hours of sleep.

Around seven o’clock that evening, they had identified John Doe. Mitchell Spokes, twenty-four, no current residence, no job on record. Picked up for prostitution two months ago, booked, fined and released. Deeper digging didn’t find much else, as if the man hadn’t existed beyond the single arrest.

His former occupation certainly gave the case plausibility as a sexual encounter gone wrong. Nate had spent the next few hours looking into Spokes’s past. Birth certificate in the state of Ohio. Mother was deceased, father still alive. Nate made the call. The father said he didn’t have a son and then hung up.

Nate didn’t know what had happened between the elder and younger Spokeses, but he couldn’t comprehend not caring your child was dead. Years of being a police officer hadn’t left him numb to everything. Not yet.

Mitchell Spokes hadn’t filed taxes for the past three years, which didn’t surprise Nate much. If he was hooking to survive, he wasn’t going to report the income. By the time Nate had gleaned all of the tidbits of Spokes’s life that he could find, it was too late to take his picture onto the streets. He’d do it tomorrow night.

Hence hearing the clipped voice mail well after midnight.

“Hey, it’s me. They’re pulling the plug on Doug tomorrow. We can stop by to say

goodbye whenever, but do it by three, okay? Later.”

James sounded odd, even for him, and Nate listened to the message again to be sure fatigue wasn’t coloring the words. He hit Return, but James must have turned his phone off because it went straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. James would see the missed call in the morning.

He tried to sleep but kept waking up from awful nightmares involving James in a hospital bed, begging Nate to pull the plug before things got worse. He gave up around five in the morning, packed a bag and hit the local gym for a long, exhaustive workout. After a hot shower, he texted Elliott that he’d be at the hospital around lunch. Still no return call from James. Nate dressed for work and headed into the station.

He worked until noon, mostly making phone calls and chasing leads. A detective’s life was rarely as glamorous or exciting as on TV. It involved a fuck-ton of paperwork. Everything had to be recorded and filed properly, in case something actually made it to trial. An un-dotted
I
or uncrossed
T
could flip an entire case upside down and get evidence thrown out.

As he prepared to leave the station, he shot James a quick
Where are you?
text. The response came over fifteen minutes later as Nate was pulling into the Saint Francis parking structure.

Hospital.

Useful. Very useful. James was ignoring him, and Nate wanted to know why.

He froze with his hand on the gear shift. Had James remembered the kiss from Thursday night? The thought sent a warmth through his gut that battled with a chill down his spine. That kiss might have ruined a fifteen-year friendship.

No sense in wondering what-if. He had to go say goodbye to a friend and support Elliott.

He couldn’t imagine what the younger man was going through right now. Not only watching his lover waste away for weeks, but to be there when he took his final breath. Nate ached for Elliott’s pain.

I could never watch James die like that.

A small crowd of their shared friends had taken over the waiting room on Doug’s floor.

Boxer and his latest boyfriend, Louis. Tori and her husband, Allen. Some of Doug’s coworkers from the store. Some of Elliott’s coworkers from the law firm he’d been with as an administrative assistant ever since he decided he wanted to go back to school and be a paralegal.

Plans that had fallen by the wayside since the engagement.

Familiar faces, many of them tear-streaked. All of them open and friendly. Nate gave and received hugs, ending with Tori in his arms. She was a slip of a woman, four-foot-eight, with the personality of a charging bull. Flaming red hair, tattoos up and down her arms and neck, and a husband who looked as if he’d stepped out of
Leave it to Beaver
. The contrast was hilarious at times, but the tender way Allen watched her, tended to her, made Nate wish for what they had.

Tori was also the only female bartender at the Rusty Nail, another gay bar that tended toward the leather and whip side of life. She’d tried to tell Nate the story of how she first met Elliott at least a dozen times, but he always escaped. He didn’t need the mental images, thank you very much.

“Have you talked to Elliott?” Nate asked.

“A little while ago, when I said goodbye,” Tori replied. She dabbed at her kohl-lined eyes with a tissue. “He isn’t saying much. Just kind of sits and watches. I’m glad he’s got Jay.”

“He does?”

“Yeah, Jay’s been in with him all morning.”

An odd feeling settled in Nate’s gut. Ridiculous. James was supporting his friend. No other reason he was there and ignoring Nate.

“You should go in,” Tori said. “I’m sure Ell will want to know you’re here.”

“Yeah.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, then left the waiting room.

Mr. and Mrs. Swanson stood outside Doug’s room, simply holding each other. They were lost in their grief, paying no attention, so Nate didn’t disturb them. He slipped into the room and froze. James and Elliott sat side by side on the cot, clutching each other’s hands. That odd feeling slithered back, and Nate didn’t insult himself by pretending
that
wasn’t jealousy.

Elliott saw him first, and a sad smile cracked his weary face. “Hey, honey.”

James glanced up, then away, and Nate hid a flinch. “Hey, Ell.”

They hugged. Nate was used to the way James’s gay friends hugged. All arms and body and often kisses on the cheek, so he wasn’t at all embarrassed by the way Elliott clung to him.

He held tight until Elliott pulled away.

Nate turned to the sunken, unfamiliar face of the body in Doug’s bed. He hadn’t known Doug as well as the others, only ever seeing him in Elliott’s company. Doug had been fun and funny, and he was a tyrant when it came to party games. He wanted to believe that Doug and Elliott would have made it for the long haul. The idea gave him hope.

“I’m so sorry, Elliott,” he said as he turned from the bed.

Elliott fell into his arms again, and Nate held him. Elliott was a tactile person, always going out of his way to ruffle hair or pat an arm, and he was going to need every hug and touch he could get from his friends. Nate had liked Elliott from the first night James showed up at a group bar hop with Elliott hanging off his arm like a loyal puppy. A puppy with a sardonic wit and a lot of bite when snapped at.

So very different from the silent, withdrawn man he’d been these past few weeks.

After a while, they sat again, Elliott flanked on either side by Nate and James, holding each of their hands in his lap. They didn’t speak. A few more times someone came in to say goodbye. Elliott spoke to them. The visits didn’t last long. Too soon, the Swansons came in with a doctor. Nate followed James into the waiting room, where they were swallowed up by friends.

A nurse came out ten minutes later to tell them that Doug had passed peacefully.

James collapsed into a chair. He wasn’t crying, but his body seemed to fold in on itself, shrinking him down. Nate commandeered the chair beside him and sat, waiting while others slowly filed out, until it was only the pair of them, and an elderly couple who wasn’t part of the group.

Nate didn’t know how to feel. He’d mourned Doug weeks ago, accepting the inevitability of his death, and he couldn’t find any tears now. Maybe it would hit him later. He hoped so. He hated thinking that his job had hardened him to the point where a friend’s ultimate passing meant nothing beyond a date stamped on a death certificate.

“You don’t have to stay,” James said.

“I know.”

“I’m going to wait around, make sure Elliott gets home okay.”

Nate stared at James’s profile, uncertain if that was a subtle hint for him to get lost. “I have to work later, but not for a few hours. I can stay.”

James tensed. Yeah, he wanted Nate to leave, and the realization made Nate’s heart turn over. Something had happened between last night’s dinnertime phone call and today. He hated this weird wall between them, and he hated not knowing why it was there.

No way James had remembered the kiss. “If you want me to leave, tell me to leave,” Nate said.

James dropped his chin to his chest, but didn’t say anything.

“Is this about Elliott and Doug, or something else?”

“Both,” James said to his lap.

Okay.
“Did I do something?”

“I don’t know.” He raised his head, his hazel eyes drilling into Nate. “Did you?”

James stared at Nathan, challenging him to be truthful and verify what James suspected had happened during his blackout. He’d barely slept last night, tossing and turning, haunted by images of Elliott sobbing in the middle of that clothing pile, and by wisps of images that were barely memories. Nathan’s couch. Whiskey and chips.

He needed Nathan to tell him. He needed to know if he’d forced Nathan into something because he was so fucking drunk he didn’t care that he was risking the best relationship in his life.

Nathan’s eyes narrowed, their trajectory changing as he did that cop thing where he took in details and made observations. James had seen the behavior hundreds of times. Nathan was hard to beat at poker because of it, and he was difficult to read when things got serious.

“You want to know something, you ask me,” Nathan said.

James glanced at the elderly couple. They were engrossed in the room’s only flat-screen, which was playing something from Court TV, and not paying them any mind. The room was too quiet, even for whispering. And he really wanted a cigarette.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” he said as he stood.

Nathan followed him to the elevator. They didn’t speak, and that was okay with James.

He didn’t know what to say. Not really. A dozen questions bulleted through his brain, demanding to be asked but kept silent by doubts and worry. He went out to the top floor of the parking structure. Smoking was prohibited on hospital grounds, but he was up in the open air and his friend had just died, so he figured he was entitled.

“You had your phone off last night,” Nathan said.

James puffed on a cigarette, finding no enjoyment in it today. He studied the smoldering tip. Maybe it was time to quit again. “I needed to think.”

“About what?”

You. Me. Cheating fiancés. Is true love a fairy tale?

Nathan was always the guy who helped him sort out the crap that built up in his head.

And Elliott hadn’t asked him to keep the cheating to himself. He could tell Nathan without fear of the gossip spreading around town like wildfire. Nathan was good with secrets.

“Doug cheated on Elliott.”

“What?” Nathan’s eyebrows winged up, his lips parting. Utter shock. “When?”

“This spring. Elliott found photos. Doug was wearing the watch Ell gave him on

Valentine’s Day.”

“Holy shit.” Nathan sagged against the cement guardrail and crossed his arms.